Happy Thanksgiving!

We are thankful for so many things this year. We are thankful for family in town to celebrate this holiday with us, and for all the family we missed who were far away. We are thankful for the family we've created here in town who we celebrate with. We are thankful for our health, for our home, for our work. But most of all, we are thankful that we share our life with the most wonderful daughters we've ever seen, Clara Mary Mae and Elena Ashley Rose. These two girls are the lights of our lives.


We had such a fun day. It started out a bit rough, with Elena feeling under the weather, but after two little naps under her belt she seemed just great. The girls watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and learned to say "gobble gobble" and waved at Santa Claus.

Then, they helped Christina and her sister, Cyndie, make a lemon meringue pie.

We thought they might like trying the lemons - um, we were wrong.

Then, we headed to our friends' house and finished cooking Thanksgiving dinner. We had some snacks while we were waiting for the turkey to finish cooking. This year, the girls got to partake in a tradition from Christina's family - eating a fruit tray with figs and fennel! Elena especially loved the figs.

We are happy to have had Aunt Cyndie in town since last week. Yesterday, Nana Rose and GDaddy got into town!! Here they are, in a pose very telling of their personalities. We love them.

This, sadly, is the best full-length picture we got of the girls. Clara had a purple frilly dress, and look - she wore her fancy black shoes!! Elena (way background) had a velvet white dress which would have looked GREAT with fancy black shoes, but she refused to wear them. So, we have pretty dress with everyday scuffed-up brown shoes. Ah, well.

Finally, the turkey got done! This might be the last year that the turkey weighed more than the girls. Although, with a 30 pound turkey like this we might outweigh the girls next year, too. We'll have to see.

The girls ate SO MUCH food - much of it using a fork and spoon on their own. They are getting so big. What do you do when you're full, but have to make room for some dessert? Get tickled, of course! Here's Elena getting a fun tickle from Auntie Cyndie:

And a fun tickle for Clara from Steve.

We hope that you all had a good Thanksgiving, too. We look forward to celebrating more holidays with more of you in the near future!